Lawyer Now Advising WHO on Tobacco Issue
Sep 13 1999
By David Phelps, Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St.Paul)
Published: September 13, 1999.
Roberta Walburn, one of the key architects of the state of Minnesota's successful battle against the tobacco industry, now spends her days within the offices of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, providing her legal skills to an international audience concerned about the health effects of smoking.
Walburn, who has been in Geneva since the end of June, is on a one-year program with WHO as a Global Health Leadership Senior Fellow, assisting on a number of smoking-and-health issues, including a draft for an international treaty dealing with tobacco control.
"To see the whole tobacco issue from a global perspective is fascinating," said Walburn, who spent four years helping guide the Minnesota case to a first-of-its-kind trial last year. "It's a whole new world for me. The scope changes, the issues change."
Walburn is on leave from the Minneapolis firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, which handled the lawsuit brought by the state and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota from its inception through a $7.1 billion settlement.
Walburn's European assignment follows a three-month stint consulting with attorneys in the Justice Department about pursuing litigation similar to the Minnesota case to recover government-paid costs for treating smoking related illnesses.
She declined to discuss the status of the Justice case, citing attorney-client privilege.
Her travels have confirmed for Walburn the significance of the evidence produced in the Minnesota case relating to addiction, marketing and the health affects of smoking. The 35 million documents produced in the Minnesota case are available on the internet, as well as depositories in Minneapolis and England.
"What is striking is how well the Minnesota case has been received around the world," Walburn said. "WHO has really focused a lot on the documents and how they can be used for public health."
Copyright 1999 Star Tribune. Republished here with the permission of the Star Tribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written permission of the Star Tribune.
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